Bob is a member of our Board of Advisors. I like his work. Both his articles and the Winner Take All Society.
REH From: Robert Frank [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2011 4:28 PM To: Robert Frank Subject: The Darwin Economy I hope this note finds you well. I write to let you know that my new book, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good, will be published by Princeton University Press this Wednesday, September 21, as the lead title on its fall list. An essay excerpted from the book was published in today's Sunday Business section of the New York Times ( <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/business/darwin-the-market-whiz.html> "Darwin, The Market Whiz"). And another excerpt from the book was recently published by the Cornell Alumni Magazine ( <http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id= 1172&Itemid=9> "Starve the Beast"). I was moved to write this book by feelings of despair about our impoverished political/economic debate. With a solid majority in the House and enough votes to block legislation in the Senate, Republicans have vowed to balance the federal budget with spending cuts alone. But as anyone familiar with the numbers knows, that's impossible. We'll also need new revenues. Yet Republicans on the Congressional budget supercommittee have all signed a formal pledge never to approve increased taxes under any circumstances. And in a recent debate, Republican presidential candidates all said they would reject any proposal that had even one dollar of tax increases for every ten dollars of spending cuts. An economic train-wreck looms. That's the bad news. The good news is that there's a painless way to avert it. In The Darwin Economy, I describe simple steps could liberate literally trillions of dollars in additional resources each year-enough not just to balance the budget but also to restore our crumbling infrastructure. No painful sacrifices would be required. No cherished freedoms would be threatened. Just a few unintrusive changes in the tax code would suffice. These bold claims, inspired by insights of Charles Darwin, evoke the alchemist's promise to transform lead into gold. But they rest on sound logic and compelling evidence. Darwin understood that individual and group interests sometimes coincide, as in Adam Smith's Invisible-Hand theory. But he also understood that group interests often conflict sharply with individual interests, and that in those cases, individual interests trump. In ways that non-human animals cannot, we can act collectively to curb the enormous waste that often results from such conflicts. And therein lies the way forward. The policies I propose rest on a simple, uncontroversial observation-that the forces driving luxury consumption are strongly context-dependent. When the rich all build larger mansions, they succeed only in raising the bar that defines how big a mansion they feel they need. Simple changes in the tax code could cause across-the-board reductions in luxury spending whose effects would be similar to those of parallel cutbacks in weapons spending caused by military arms control agreements. Such agreements also create new resources out of thin air, by enabling rival nations to spend more on domestic services without jeopardizing their national security. Implausible though my claim might sound on first hearing, many respected economists (including the two I admire most-Tom Schelling and Will Baumol) have endorsed my arguments. For example, Baumol, a past president of the American Economic Association, wrote that the book's "message is my only hope for a rational economic future." Amazon.com has compiled long list of other endorsements <http://www.amazon.com/Darwin-Economy-Liberty-Competition-Common/dp/06911531 91/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313029443&sr=1-1> here. I've been at this long enough to know better than to expect that any single book will make much difference. But conversations about change have to start somewhere, and if you're concerned about the paralysis gripping our political process, I hope you'll give The Darwin Economy a look. Its first chapter is posted on Princeton's website <http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9509.pdf> here, and there's lots more information about it on the book's Facebook page <http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Darwin-Economy-by-Robert-H-Frank/19972493 6731171?sfrm> here. All good wishes, Bob
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